Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (15 page)

Rourkewas falling backwards, the second technician’s hands going for his throat, both of them hitting the water, the water’s surface around them seeming to swell upward, Rourke ramming the knife upward into the technician’s abdomen, pushing him away into the gaping mouth of one of the Great Whites.

Rourkewas less than six feet from the edge of the pool. The technician screamed as the White’s jaws closed over him, the entire right side of his body shaken off as the shark had bitten, the half-torso and head flicked across the pool, coming down with a resounding splash. John Rourke was nearly to the edge now, reaching, thrusting himself upward, rolling left, massive jaws almost obscuring the head of which they were a part, rising from the water behind him, the creature crashing against the water’s surface, head over the edge of the pool as Rourke edged back from it. Then the head sank from sight.

Rourkewas up, running now, to the watertight door. He wrenched at the opening device, wheeling it counterclockwise, dragging the door toward him, half falling over the

flange,no time to look what might be beyond. Behind him was certain death. That he knew.

Hestopped, sagging back against the wall, catching his breath. The floor beneath him was marble, like that of the hall of the triumvirate. He looked across the room. This too was a massive hall, but a museum hall, display cases alternating with built-in aquarium exhibits, sea creatures of every description here. He was back inside the Institute for Marine Studies. For an instant, he experienced deja vu. Natalia’s uncle, General Varakov, his headquarters in the natural history museum—his “office without walls,” as Natalia had told him her uncle had called it.

JohnRourke shook his head to clear it. “The door,” he hissed, startled by the sound of his own voice speaking English. He pulled the watertight door shut, spinning the locking mechanism to seal it. He had to brace the wheel, but not with the knife. Aside from the fact that it was irreplaceable, more important under the circumstances was that it was his only weapon.

Adisplay case, and though he felt like a barbarian doing it, hestaggered toward the nearest case, using the butt of his knife like a hammer against the flimsy lock on the access opening, the lock shattering beneath the impact, reaching inside then and shoving the stuffed carcass of a manta from one of the pedestals which supported it. He wrenched the pedestal free of the case, unscrewing the flat top piece. What he needed was the tubular section running upfrom the base, made of steel or something like it totake the weight of the display. Quickly, he passed the bar through the wheel and into the exposed locking bars of the mechanism, effectively sealing the door against opening from the other side.

Rourkestarted across the museum hall, an alarm sounding in the distance. He broke into a jog trot, all the energy he could muster at the moment. A set of double doors. They were made to look like wood, like the doors leading into the hall of the triumvirate where he had been sentenced to death. He threw his weight against them. They vibrated, but didn’t break. There was a gap between

thetwo doors and he shoved the Crain knife into the open space, then brought it downward with all the force he could summon, against the crossbolt, the spine of the knife breaking the grip of the bolt. He threw his left shoulder against the doors and they rocked outward, one partially falling from one of its hinges.

Hewas in the entrance hall, the elevator bank to his left. If Kerenin had survived, or even if the Marine Spetznas major hadn’t, his men would be coming up those elevators, perhaps already were. Rourke forced himself to run, his breathing more regular, some strength returning now. To the elevators, pushing the call buttons. If they were already on their way—Kerenin’s men—it would do no good. If they weren’t, it would perhaps buy a few more seconds.

Heran toward the street beyond the main doors, the Gullwing transport still there. But as he pushed through onto the walkway, at the far right edge of his peripheral vision, he saw a solitary Marine Spetznas enlisted man, the man seeing him, starting to draw his Sty-20. Rourke hurtled himself toward the man, the two of them smashing down to the pavement of the walkway surface. Rourke’s right hand hammering forward and up, the Crain knife gouging in beneath the sternum and into the chest cavity, the man beneath him dead in the same instant, a gurgling rattle issuing from his drooling open mouth. Rourke grabbed the Sty-20 from the sidewalk and was up, running into the street, dodging another of the Gullwing vehicles, running toward the still-parked vehicle he had arrived in. They each had registration tags—he had memorized the number. The gullwings were starting to close. Rourke threw himself down, ramming the Sty-20 ahead of him, firing, then firing again, the body of the driver lurching twice.

JohnRourke was to his feet, the Gullwing starting away from the curb as he reached it, extending his left hand with the knife under the gullwing, hacking the primary edge across the left side of the driver’s neck. Rourke rolled the body outward, pushing the gullwing up, sliding be

hindthe wheel. He had watched as best he could how the vehicle was manipulated. “Here goes,” Rourke rasped, the knife and the Sty-20 going to the floor beside the driver’s seat, his hands going to the wheel. The vehicle was already in drive or whatever it was, moving slowly forward. He found what he hoped was an accelerator pedal and stomped it, the Gullwing lurching ahead.

AnotherGullwing was dead in its path, Rourke cutting the wheel, but too sharply, the Gullwing he drove climbing the curb, bouncing off, back to the street, sideswiping the oncoming vehicle. Rourke recovered the wheel and stomped the accelerator again, the pickup terrible. But he was moving.

Alarmsignals were sounding everywhere around him now… .

NataliaAnastasia Tiemerovna, her wrists and ankles bound to the sides of the bed, her arms and legs splayed above and below, naked beneath the sheet and light blanket that had been placed over her, felt the corners of her mouth raising in a smile. She awaited whatever Olav Kerenin’s pleasure might be with her and she realized that she had endured worse and was powerless to prevent what might happen.

ButNatalia smiled because she heard the alarms through the open window, their dissonance music to her. She told herself the alarms could mean only one thing. John Rourke had escaped. He lived.

Guardswere everywhere. John Rourke had critically disabled the Gullwing while smashing through an improvised roadblock, then had ditched the vehicle and run for it. Cameras were everywhere, but their sheer number logically dictated that the images they produced would be computer-scanned rather than observed by human operators.

Withlittle left of his shirt and only one boot, it was imperative that he acquire more suitable attire.

Hewaited inside a hedgerow with that specific purpose in mind.

Tosteal just any uniform would have been pointless without the services of a creative tailor to assist him. The majority of the men here were too short in stature. After more than an hour of waiting, freezing as his clothes dried to his body, and after several changes of location, he found his man. But unfortunately his man was not alone, a woman with him.

Thecombination presented an awkward moral problem, but on the positive side, the woman was tall as well and approximated Natalia’s height. And Natalia would need a uniform after he managed to free her. Rourke shrugged.

Theman and woman approached, the two of them arguing over the proposed relaxation of rules governing fraternization between members of the opposite sex within the Marine Spetznas, the woman insisting it was clear evidence of moral decadence. They searched the hedges for the missing prisoner—Rourke. He felt relieved somehow that they were not two off-duty lovers out for a stroll, but rather coworkers. And the woman’s contention that moral decline loomed on the horizon sounded much too

narrow-minded.

Both of them had their Sty-20s drawn, but he was familiar enough with the weapons by now to be able to tell as they neared him that the man at least had the safety of his Sty-20 activated.

It was time for Jack Crain’s knife again, but logic dictated another mode of use.

And John Rourke rose from the hedgerow, the order of progression now clear. The man had his safety on, which would mean it would take a split second longer for him to use his gun. Women had higher-pitched voices, and a shout would be a scream and be heard over a greater distance.

John Rourke stepped into the path of the two Marine Spetznas, the Life Support System X sheathed, his right hand hammering the massive two pounds of steel and leather down against the crown of the woman’s skull, her body collapsing at his feet as his left hand fired the liberated Sty-20, double-tapping, both darts impacting the man’s throat. As the man started to raise his pistol, Rourke used the sheathed knife like a flat sap, slapping it across the left ear and the side of his head. The man went down. Rourke dropped to his knees, testing the woman for a pulse. Her pulse was strong and he judged she would regain consciousness in a matter of moments, however woozily. He rolled back one of her eyelids, confirming that what he had to do next would not be murder. He shot her twice with the darts from the Sty-20, aiming into her left thigh to delay the course of the sedative.

Rourke safed his pistol, then hers, then took the man’s pistol, proceeding to drag the man and woman in turn back into the hedgerow… .

The Crain knife was under his stolen uniform, the two spare pistols wrapped inside the woman’s uniform, which he had neatly folded and then tucked under his arm. Women here wore atrociously unfeminine underwear and he had left the female Marine Spetznas hers. Natalia

wouldn’thave been caught dead in it. He had used the primary edge of the Crain knife for a makeshift shave, touching up the edge first, moistening his beard with the still-wet trouser legs of his Levis. He had used the polished uniform belt buckle from the male Marine Spetznas as an improvised mirror. Pulling the long-billed uniform cap low over his eyes, John Rourke left the hedgerow, his original Sty-20 in his right fist. He continued “checking” the hedgerow, lest curious eyes should see him and wonder, then left the hedges for the greenway which led down from the roadway bordering the perimeter of the dome toward the nearest of the monorail stations. Rourke holstered his pistol.

Themonorail cars were as gray as the prospects of someone who lived under a totalitarian government such as this, he thought, ascending the low steps toward the diagonally moving sidewalk, the sidewalk rising toward the monorail station platform itself. Men and women in the blue civilian attire passed him by, evidently in a hurry to go somewhere. Rourke, instead, studied the city. The main dome’s ultimate height disappeared among the clouds of vapor—it was very humid here—and strikingly plain edifices rose everywhere, the upper floors of some of the taller structures lost in the cloud cover as well. In the distance to his left—he had no conception of cardinal directions here—a portion of the next dome could be seen, more green visible. The suburbs, he supposed.

Atthe height of the diagonally moving sidewalk, John Rourke stepped onto the platform and began walking its length. When a stare came his way he stared back. In a totalitarian society, the soldier or secret policeman’s stare always triumphed. Rourke kept walking. Seeming to ring the city itself, he realized, were a system of downward sloping ramps, soon shrouded in shadow. Access systems to the city sewage system, perhaps. And there were no visible electric or telephone lines. But he wondered.

Healmost showed his surprise when a voice addressed him. He turned easily toward the voice instead. A man, perhaps his own height, but very young. A Marine

Spetznas, he stared at John Rourke’s uniform and said, “Excuse me, Comrade Sergeant Markov?”

Rourke had never thought to look at his name tag—the officers wore none—but a quick glance at the younger man’s uniform indicated that the Marine Spetznas’s name was Vishnov. “Yes, comrade?”

“The alert is still in force?”

“Why do you ask, comrade?” Rourke tried to force his Russian to be as accentless as that of the people here.

“My communicator—it must be broken, comrade sergeant.” He smiled.

Rourke patted the communicator on his belt. “Mine is not. You are just the man I need, comrade—come with me at once.”

“Yes, comrade sergeant. I have never seen you before.” They started walking, toward the downward moving diagonal sidewalk.

“I have been on a protracted mission. Tell me—have you been briefed concerning the accomplices of this person for whom we search?”

“I have not, sergeant—are there many?”

Rourke leaned toward him conspiratorily as they took to the walkway. “I have just captured two of them, but I will need your help, comrade.”

“Yes, comrade!”

Rourke clapped the young fellow on the shoulder… .

He had shown the boy the two still-unconscious, disrobed Marine Spetznas personnel and, while the boy had stared, John Rourke had withdrawn his knife from beneath his uniform and placed it at the young man’s throat. Adding still another Sty-20 to his growing arsenal, John Rourke put the boy to sleep with two darts from it and gently eased him to the ground. When everyone had awakened, the boy would be the one least likely to get into trouble, Rourke reassured himself. The other two, after all, were just in their underwear.

At the base of the main dome there was a deep under

ground complex, the lowest level of the research center— Rourke hadn’t asked toward what goal the “research” was directed—and above that the security-police headquarters and offices. The security police wore, he deduced, the differently marked uniforms he had seen since his escape. And in the midst of the security complex was the prison. The boy had not known how many were held there, but had guessed at well over a hundred men and some women. Above this level was the overall dome-maintenance control—sewage, light, water, and the like. And above that, like the frosting on a cake, the interior of the dome, the city itself. A hallway crowned the maintenance level, ringing its circumference. There was a system of elevators allowing access from above to below, but the most direct route, Rourke had been assured, was from below. The ramped tunnels John Rourke had detected from the monorail platform were marked to indicate to which level they extended. Best to go to research rather than directly to the prison. Since the boy had been so insistent on that, Rourke decided that going through research was the last thing he wished to do.